GOBankingRates caught up with retirement expert Chris Hogan backstage at Dave Ramsey's Smart Conference to ask him a few questions about saving for retirement. Chris dispelled a myth many of have about retirement. Check out the video below:
Chris Hogan: How to Find Your Retirement Number
GOBankingRates: Is retirement an age or a number?
Chris: I think with retirement, it's not an age at all. It has nothing to do with how old you are. But it is a number. It's about you knowing your financial number, so you can know -- If I save up and work toward getting that number, regardless of my age, I've now earned freedom. I can go do the things that I want to do, the things that are deep in my heart, because I've worked and I've sacrificed to save.
I'm passionate about it. I'm a former banker. So I've sat across from people getting loans for many years, then I transitioned into financial coaching. So I was sitting kneecap-to-kneecap with people hearing about some pretty tough situations, hearing about people that took a financial chance and it didn't work out.
GOBankingRates: How can you start to plan for retirement?
Chris: I think if you're starting off thinking about retirement, the first place you need to start is a dream. I want you to start to really think about: What does retirement look like to you? I don't mean on the surface, I don't mean what other people want you to do, but you taking the time to really think about it. What do you really want to do? Some people want to travel, others may want a house by the lake, others may want to go spoil grandkids or travel and see exotic places, or maybe even start a business. But you need to give some thought this and really reach down deep in your heart. What are you passionate about? And you start to think of retirement that way, where it's freeing you up to do the thing you love the most.
We've all gotten where we are because someone else cared enough about us to help us. I want to help other people in this area of retirement, to free them up to do the things that they're most passionate about so they can go and help other people. Because, I figured something out: People impact people's lives.
GOBankingRates: What's the best way to start figuring out your retirement number?
Chris: Well the best way to start to understand your retirement number is with a tool we developed -- it's call the R:IQ. It's talking about the Retire Inspired Quotient, and it's a tool that we developed that really helps people go from a concept about retirement to now actively planning, to know their number -- how do we do this? How much money do I need to live on each month? How much do I have saved up? How does it all correlate? And so we put together this tool to help people decipher this number -- to begin to understand the dream, and now this number, and now the work part of it: the things you have to do to help you get to where you want to go.